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For immediate release
21 May 2011
A stone-still wombat relaxing in the outdoor surrounds of Southern Queensland Institute of TAFE has taken out the inaugural Heritage Building Society Gardenfest Garden Sculpture competition.
Artist Daniel Gill carved the wombat from sandstone and named the fun and creative piece, Just Relaxing in the Garden.
Recording 320 votes in the People’s Choice competition at Heritage Building Society Gardenfest, Mr Gill’s entry was only 11 points ahead of the other clear favourite Pterodactus Inquisitis - Fire Bird by Malcom Sypher.
“With my passion of sculpting in stone, the wombat has allowed me to use my passion of having an idea, finding the stone for that idea and turning it into something that people can then interact and have fun with, especially the children,” Mr Gill said.
“I hope to have a series of animals including the wombat, echidna, platypus, kangaroo, koala and kookaburra all relaxing around a campfire similar to what we humans do when we go camping.
“I love using the local Helidon Sandstone for its sweeping bands of colour and its quality.”
Around 1500 votes were entered into the fun inaugural competition which featured 10 entries from artists around the region.
Event manager of Heritage Building Society Gardenfest, Emily Murphy said the competition had generated a lot of interest.
“It was interesting to work with the different types of artists who use a variety of mediums to showcase their creativity,” Miss Murphy said.
“The competition allowed many hundreds of people to view the fantastic entries in the beautiful surrounds of the TAFE Horticulture area.
“The vote was close for the top two places and there were lots of entries that even had encouraging messages on them!”
It is hoped the competition will become a regular feature of Heritage Building Society Gardenfest and planning for the 2012 event will begin in September after the Toowoomba Carnival of Flowers.
Heritage Building Society Gardenfest and Autumnfest have joined forces to promote the Garden City over the first weekend of May.
Celebrating the joy of the outdoors, the two events are showcasing a massive range of trees, plants and art work.
For 30 years, Gardenfest has been the event to herald the optimum planting time for gardeners for spring blooms and will showcase a massive range of trees, plants, outdoor equipment and furniture as well as gourmet food and regional wine.
Now in its second year, Autumnfest is a delightful day amongst the vast stands of shady trees at the Davidson Arboretum in Highfields.
Artists from around the region are putting their creative thinking caps on to design and create innovative garden sculptures to adorn Heritage Building Society Gardenfest.
Gardenfest is a major celebration for the first event on the Toowoomba Carnival of Flowers calendar this year and this year the show on the long weekend of May celebrates 30 years.
Hirstglen Nursery owner Malcom Sypher has already had his welder out to create INCOGNETA weldii as an example of sculpture for the garden and is encouraging others to get involved.
“I’m on the Gardenfest committee and we wanted to really make the site special for the 30th anniversary,” the nursery man and creative soul said.
22 February 2011
The first event of the Toowoomba Carnival of Flowers kicked off yesterday with the Heritage Building Society Gardenfest launch.
Celebrating 30 years of the event in Toowoomba, it heralds the time to start planting for spring and the iconic Toowoomba Carnival of Flowers.
The who’s who of Toowoomba’s leaders paid tribute to the event’s history, with Heritage Building Society CEO John Minz saying Gardenfest would be an event to help people move on from difficulties of the summer floods.
Tourism, Events and Parks Services leader, Councillor Joe Ramia, said the event came from humble beginnings and this year would be the biggest and best yet.
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